A-Levels on one exam board?

I did all OCR in sixthfrom, though admittedly in year 11 i did one with AQA. They were OCR MEI for maths, OCR B (Advancing Physics) for physics, and OCR B (Salters) for Chemistry.

I will never understand why my school chose to do all these 'B' strand exam boards which are so obviously harder than the normal OCR strands and edexcel or AQA.

Reply 3

Killamanshank

OP

Original post by newblood

I did all OCR in sixthfrom, though admittedly in year 11 i did one with AQA. They were OCR MEI for maths, OCR B (Advancing Physics) for physics, and OCR B (Salters) for Chemistry.

I will never understand why my school chose to do all these 'B' strand exam boards which are so obviously harder than the normal OCR strands and edexcel or AQA.

Does this mean all of your A-Levels (apart from the one you did in year 11) were on 1 OCR certificate?

Reply 4

Original post by Killamanshank

Does this mean all of your A-Levels (apart from the one you did in year 11) were on 1 OCR certificate?

Yes. I got my AS certificates last year and it was just 1 certificate for me. It just had each subject with the grade next to it i think.

Rather worryingly, I dont recall where I put it now...or my GCSE certificates for that matter. Hope I haven't lost them haha!

Reply 5

C0balt

16

My previous school was all CIE

Reply 6

vee_wuvshugs

Original post by newblood

Yes. I got my AS certificates last year and it was just 1 certificate for me. It just had each subject with the grade next to it i think.

Rather worryingly, I dont recall where I put it now...or my GCSE certificates for that matter. Hope I haven't lost them haha!

Does anybody keep a folder or something? I still have all my certificates from reception to now (year 12) :colondollar:

Reply 7

WelcomeToJ'sFreakShow

Original post by newblood

I did all OCR in sixthfrom, though admittedly in year 11 i did one with AQA. They were OCR MEI for maths, OCR B (Advancing Physics) for physics, and OCR B (Salters) for Chemistry.

I will never understand why my school chose to do all these 'B' strand exam boards which are so obviously harder than the normal OCR strands and edexcel or AQA.

How did you find OCR Physics B?

Reply 8

Original post by vee_wuvshugs

Does anybody keep a folder or something? I still have all my certificates from reception to now (year 12) :colondollar:

Yes i just checked and theyre all in a box in my mums office, along with some scouts certificates and miscellaneous stuff from primary school haha!

Reply 9

Original post by ExMus

How did you find OCR Physics B?

As most people would agree, it is very peculiar. I would strongly recommend doing a different board if you can, the textbook is crap, the only revision book available is CGP which most of my friends used but I didnt bother with as i find they are typically too remedial and are littered with annoying jokes.

But i did fine and I know a few others who did too, the course is quite interesting, but as someone who isn't aiming to do physics at uni that wasn't very appealing to me (or surprisingly the people who did apply for physics!). Tbh i learnt it all at the end of the year before exams.

Reply 10

Compost

Original post by newblood

all these 'B' strand exam boards which are so obviously harder than the normal OCR strands and edexcel or AQA.

Given that a lot of effort is put into ensuring that different specifications are of similar difficulty, have you any evidence to substantiate this?

Reply 11

Original post by Compost

Given that a lot of effort is put into ensuring that different specifications are of similar difficulty, have you any evidence to substantiate this?

just take a look at the exam papers and more importantly the available resources.

On TSR nearly everyone who does alevel physics agrees advancing physics b is the hardest and the same goes for OCR MEI maths.

I dont think much effort is put in at all. Its ridiculous why the government simply don't offer a single examining body for all exams. In my opinion, different grades mean different things on different examboards. My friend didnt do well on our boards...switched schools and was amazed how much easier doing all edexcel sciences and maths was compared to OCR 'B' strands. I admit that is only anecdotal but it is up to you to compare the boards if you dont believe me.

The most significant difference is not the 'difficulty' of questions, but how repetitive they are on other exams boards and how prescriptive they are (i.e. the examquestions can be answered by clear chunks from textbook whereas that is really not the case for OCR B)

Reply 12

WelcomeToJ'sFreakShow

Original post by newblood

As most people would agree, it is very peculiar. I would strongly recommend doing a different board if you can, the textbook is crap, the only revision book available is CGP which most of my friends used but I didnt bother with as i find they are typically too remedial and are littered with annoying jokes.

But i did fine and I know a few others who did too, the course is quite interesting, but as someone who isn't aiming to do physics at uni that wasn't very appealing to me (or surprisingly the people who did apply for physics!). Tbh i learnt it all at the end of the year before exams.

You can learn the whole course in two days, I believe. It took me about 8 hours to learn G492 - used the cgp book mind. What book did you use to learn or did you go by notes you made during class?

i'm trying to find a better way to learn next year's A2 course because the textbook is pure **** and the cgp book left me feeling unfulfilled. The whole course is really blurry and I wish I were given a different exam board.

Reply 13

Original post by ExMus

You can learn the whole course in two days, I believe. It took me about 8 hours to learn G492 - used the cgp book mind. What book did you use to learn or did you go by notes you made during class?

i'm trying to find a better way to learn next year's A2 course because the textbook is pure **** and the cgp book left me feeling unfulfilled. The whole course is really blurry and I wish I were given a different exam board.

We got a new teacher this year who is changing the examboard for the next lot to AQA i think haha!

I personally used a book called Advanced Physics (Allday and Adams) as well as Roger Muncasters Alevel Physics book as a next resource, which I used to learn extra physics for interest, and so it was quite fortunate how useful they was for learning the course. Only good thing about OCR B is that it really does test understanding rather than memorising crap on other boards, and understanding is quicker than learning random stuff but when it comes to the actual grade it is easier for most people on the other boards lol.

Tbh I didnt really do any physics in my A2 classes either, literally learnt it all in the May-June halfterm we had this year. G494 took a few days and G495 took about a week. Looked at the pre-release 2 nights before and literally wikid everything on it and that was more than enough. I think my friends say CGP is alright because atleast it provides structure to the course...of which there is none in the textbook (if you can call it that)

Reply 14

WelcomeToJ'sFreakShow